Having watched their neighbours Estonia and
Latvia win and the host the contest, Lithuania has now turned the
tables with their best ever result in Athens in 2006 and an
automatic position in the final in Helsinki, while the former
winners fight it out in this year's semi-final.
Once again Lithuanian broadcaster ran one of the
longest, most complicated and error prone Eurovision selections of
the year. Introduction shows were followed by qualifiers,
semi-finals and a final, but with the rules seeming to change every
week it was difficult for outsiders to fully understand what was
going on. However in the end 4Fun and "Love Or Leave",
the hot favourite going into the fiinal on March 3rd did come out
on top. Unfortunatly the story didn't end there as it turned out
that some of the voting captions had confused the telephone numbers
on the winner and the runner-up. However like so much in this
year's Lithuanian selection, the controversy was quickly swept
under the carpet and 4Fun kept their tickets to Helsinki.
The lead singer and songwriter of
"Love of Leave" is Julija Ritcik For many years she has
been playing with popular local rock and blues bands, but fame has
come to Julija only this year, with her victory in the Lithuanian
selection.
Julija learnt piano at school, but her
love for music first became evident when she started playing the
piano at 16 years old. She soon had learnt well known guitar
ballads and soon began composing her own tunes. She started her singing career in 1994 in a well-known Lithuanian blues band
TThe Road Band. She sang with them for more than six years and recorded
six albums. In 1995-1997, Julia took part in a project; The Acoustic
Trio and together with it recorded an album in 1995.
Julia
also sang for five years with The Country Blues Session Band lead
by a well-known Lithuanian composer and fiddler A. Klova, together
with this band she recorded an album in 2001. Working with these
bands Julija gained a lot of musical experience performing in many jazz, blues and country music festivals in
Lithuania and in some international blues festivals in Minsk, Kiev and Moscow and country music festivals in Poland, Latvia and The Netherlands.
In 1998, Julija won an LCMA (Lithuanian Country Musicians
Association) award as the best singer. In 1999, the Country Blues
Session Band participated in the song competition "Country
Europe" in Poland where they won the second place, helped by a
song that Julija had written. A song of Julija's was included on
the "Who is who in Lithuania" compilation in 2002, this
album was released to showcase Lithuania's music scene.
4Fun was formed in 2001 when Julija and Laimonas
Staniulonis left the Road Band. It took a couple of years to get a
settled line-up, but now the successful five piece group perform in music clubs and participates in different music events and festivals throughout Lithuania and Europe.
Today, the other members of 4Fun are guitarists Andžej Zujevic,
and brothers Rimantas and Justas Jasenka and percussionist Laimonas
Staniulonis.
The group are quite academically
minded Julija has got two degrees, with a bachelor's degree in
computer programming from Vilnius University and in 2002 a
bachelor's degree in ELT from Vilnius Pedagogical University. Since
1996, she has worked as an English teacher in a secondary school in
Vilnius.
At the moment Andžej is a student of Vilniaus Music and Theatre Academyand
later this year he's going to graduate with a bachelor degree. In 2004, Andžej won the first prize in Vilnius guitarists competitions.
Away from 4Fun, he also performs in music clubs with various jazz
projects and is invited for recording in studios a s a session
musician.
Laimonas finished a trombone class at a
music school, ten studied drums in Vilnius Conservatory, played in
a rock group The Endless Way and participated in several youth
jazz-rock projects. Later Laimonas continued studying drums in
Guildhall School of Music and Drama in the UK. After he came back
to Lithuania he played in The Road Band for four years, recorded
four albums with them and participated in many festivals. Laimonas
also played drums in CBSB and recorded one album with them.
Laimonas is a member of LCMA, at the moment he holds the post of
the assistant director of the Association. Laimonas is also the
manager of 4Fun.
Justas is a student of the
well-known Lithuanian blues guitarist Vladimir Kaplan and he also
studied acting in Vilnius Music and Theatre Academy. Meanwhile
Rimantas has played with several well known bands in Lithuania.
The
band's rather interesting stage gimmick is that the four musicians
play behind a screen and are only seen in silhouette, while the
spotlight shine on Julija, singing and playing guitar. However, it
is thought that the stage in Helsinki may not be suitable to use
the screen. The band has done limited promotion for theie entry and
is ranked among the outsiders for victory in the Eurovision Song
Contest, despite doing relativly well in internet polls.
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LATVIA @ EUROVISION